One of Foster & Son’s claim to fame apart from the legendary last maker, Mr. Terry Moore, was their amazing archival collection of bespoke samples. And what was so cool about these old samples was the fact that many of them had sat in a shop window for so long that the leather became naturally bleached from all of the years of exposure to the sun. It was such a beautifully muddled look that it soon became a frequent request by the customers. Not having thought much of it apparently, F&S did not really have a system put in place to accommodate these requests until just recently.
That being, one can now ask for it to be done on any of their black shoe models. And as you can see from the pictures presented, this is the end result. To get it done there is an surcharge of £125. For example the shoe presented costs £725 with the lasted shoe tree included but then comes to a total of £850 should one also want the antique finishing added. The shoes are of handgrade construction and to a very good caliber of making. The pictures unfortunately to do not do justice to the beauty of the work done and I must say that I was quite impressed with the overall finish. It definitely is something that I would be pleased to strut around town!
I’ve seen this before from Foster and Son and absolutely love it. A beautiful and distinctive touch. Talk about livening up your basic black!
I’d like to try this at home. Would bleach do the job?
Whatever you do don’t do that lol! Apparently acetone is the chemical of choice for this, however it is specialist work, as they used to say ‘Don’t try this at home’. If you’re lucky you will damage your shoes, if not lucky, your hands eyes etc etc.
Justin has used bleach, he wrote about it https://theshoesnobblog.com/2010/11/how-to-put-patina-on-your-shoes.html
Where did you hear about acetone?
BB, bleach and acetone both can remove the pigment from shoes. They work in different ways, bleach can’t bleach every type of leather and same with acetone, however both are damaging to the shoe and you, if not done by a pro. (e.g. you can’t fade/bleach Vass standard boxcalf). Further, don’t mix acetone and bleach, it can make chloroform.
Acetone is the main product in Nail Polish remover. A Patina expert I know uses this product, it is the standard. (in the link u sent Justin also tried acetone).
If you insist on trying it, glove up, ventilate the area, only do it with shoes you don’t care about. However since you’re on this site, I guess you care about all your shoes. Good Luck
Hi Justin,
After being interested in the Foster fawley model for quite a while, I was so tempted that I bought them ( my first high tier shoe , at retail no less) while in London this week. As I am also having the antiquing done, I was wondering if you might be able to offer some advice on the best way to maintain the antiqued finish of shoes like these.
very nice Monty! you can use neutral cream polish to upkeep and maybe a black wax which won’t really have enough pigment to darken the light spots